Arturia Tape-201 Saturated Analog Echo

Delay tape-201

Saturated analog echo

It came from outer space, but now it’s available in your daw. Organic, tape saturated delay and reverb at its fines

The arturia delay tape-201 gives you everything you love about the sound of vintage hardware tape delays, but with the reliability and versatility of software.

Simple to use, fun to tweak, and with the most authentic tape delay emulation ever found in a software effect, delay tape-201 will give you that spacious, reverberating delay you crave.

This amazing plugin pays tribute to the tape delays that changed the way music sounded forever. From the early echosonic pioneered by ray butts, mike battle’s echoplex, to ikutaro kakehashi’s masterful echo chamber series, tape delays gave guitarists and organ players a new, exciting tool to use on stage and in the studio. Hearing this fluttering golden tone, it wasn’t long before studios, recording engineers, and producers wanted to make it part of their signature sounds

In 1974, the music world was taken by storm, or rather, by space. An updated version of kakehashi’s design, this time using standard 1/4" tape in a continuous, loose loop, and no reels, became the go-to favorite for musicians and producers. Finally, floaty, magic echo in a self-contained, reliable unit. It didn’t just sound great, it was versatile too. It had multiple delay patterns to create different rhythmic feels, eq control to hone the delay’s tone, an integrated spring reverb, and - most famously of all - adjustable tape speed, letting it create otherworldly, haunting pitch changes in the delay.

Through the magic of our advanced tae modelling technology, we are able to perfectly emulate this groundbreaking delay as a plug-in. All of this magic, all of these quirks, and all of this legendary tone are recreated in arturia delay tape-201.

The holy grail of tape delays, the iconic silver, black, and green-fronted echo unit was loved by countless musicians from all genres and styles. Alternative and indie legends like radiohead, sonic youth, and bon iver loved its pitch-warping power. It fleshed out the guitar tone of everyone from the shadows to randy rhoads. Electronic pioneers vangelis, boards of canada, leftfield, and jean-michel jarre adored its spatial width and thick, saturated tone. Dub legend lee “scratch” perry and synth hero brian eno made its ghostly, analog decay part of their signature sounds. A list of famous spacey tape delay users would be impossibly long, but it would be a “who’s who” of influential music legends.

Half a century of hit-making tone,

Right in your daw

Push hard for that saturated, soft-clipping sound that cuts through any mix; get the tonal balance just right at the input stage; add vintage analog warmth in your mastering chain; use the in-built mid/side processing to enhance your whole mix.

Compatible with all major daws, now you too can enjoy the harmonic push, subtle overtones, and tone-shaping power of the most iconic studio gear ever made.

Main features

• Virtual recreation of the classic tape echo
• Accurate modeling of the electronic circuits and tape behavior, thanks to our tae and phi technologies
• Features 3 delay tape heads and a reverb tank, that can be combined in 12 different ways
• Choose between 3 delay types (left/right, ping pong or mid/side)
• Processing in stereo with independent repeat rates
• Possibility to sync repeat rates to the host tempo
• Stereo tools to control spatial width
• Input equalizer with lowpass, highpass and peak filters, to shape the sound entering the unit
• Acces to advanced modeling parameters to better match hardware behaviors (flutter, motor inertia, background noise)
• Additional lfo with 16 possible destinations
• Resizable window
• Integrated tutorials